Earlier this month I purchased 15 or so games through the Apple App Store and loaded them onto my iPhone as I worked to play and review them for our Ultimate iPhone Gaming Guide. I also, like many other iPhone owners, loaded up a handful of other applications for the phone.

Despite loading up my system to capacity, the iPhone still worked like a champ. To be on the safe side I streamlined my app and game selection before heading out to E3 . No worries for the show, fortunately, but on Friday the iPhone starting acting weird. It was sluggish, barely responding and then when I went to check my settings the screen refused to load. After waiting five minutes or so I decided to force shut down the iPhone. When it turned back on and the Apple icon appeared it just froze. No matter what I tried I couldn't get it to respond.

This afternoon I took the now bricked iPhone to the local Apple store where they looked it over and then handed me a brand new iPhone. I took it home, updated the firmware, synced the phone and things were back to normal.... for about three hours. After that the phone started to respond sluggishly and then it stopped responding altogether and I force restarted it. Brick.

That's two phones in two days. Neither of my iPhones had any hacks or unlocks or anything unathorized on them. What I suspect, suspect mind you, is that one or some of the games and applications I have on my iPhone have formed some sort of lethal concoction for the device causing it to brick over time.

I'll be bringing the second, newly bricked iPhone into the store tomorrow, but with their "don't ask, hand out new iPhone" policy, I doubt I'll be getting any real answers. Keep in mind this could also be a very bizarre coincidence, but I don't really believe in those.

Has anyone else had this problem with a game-filled iPhones?